


Silence

by JStevens



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-20 22:58:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11344845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JStevens/pseuds/JStevens
Summary: Just a pointless drabble, because I lost all motivation to do work tonight. Page 750, ladies and gents.





	Silence

**Author's Note:**

> Could almost be a sequel or pair to Minutia_R''s Speechless. Only probably much less well thought out.

**Silence**

  
The screaming had stopped by the time they reached the shore. That awful keening that had sounded as though it might rend the night in half. It hadn't split the world, though. Or rather, it had split in ways less tangible. It had split everything into a before and an after. It had drawn a line between heart-pounding adventure that left your palms sweating and your breath short--and heart-stopping tragedy that left your fingertips numb and throat closed to air. And it had torn a gaping rift between Lalli and the rest of them.

He had still been on his knees in the sand when they came stumbling down the hill, his back bent in half at an angle that looked close to breaking. And the body had been lost to the waves, out of reach to them now. The body. Emil shook his head.  _Not 'the body.' Tuuri._ That was Tuuri out there.

Sigrun had said what they all knew. They couldn't try to get her back now. She belonged to the sea, and they all understood that. Maybe all. But Lalli. What could he understand now? How would they know? He had not said a word since that lone desperate plea as he'd gone shooting off from their camp site, the last word he might ever speak to them.

 _What was the last thing I said to Tuuri?_   Emil couldn't remember. He couldn't remember, and he was sure it had been something stupid. He'd been in a foul temper with Lalli still and not even half attending to the conversation.  _What had she said back?_   Had she said something? Had he missed it? Had she known even then what she would do?

 _I should have listened. I should have said something._ The waves whispered softly along the shore, starlight catching the edges of small waves and twinkling in and out of existence as if the light could slip in and out of the world as easily as a soul. Disappearing as easily as a body could. He knew that Lalli wouldn't leave until he was sure she wasn't coming back. Maybe even beyond that point. He would want to be sure the tide didn't bring her back without him being there to find her. He might never leave this spot again.

_I should say something._

He knew the words. The words that he had made sure to remember, reading the letters over and over again in Tuuri's neat, round handwriting. He had known he would need them again, after the first time he had nearly gotten Lalli killed. The Finnish words for "I'm sorry" were two that he would never let himself forget, no matter how hopeless he was at the language otherwise. He hadn't been able to say them that afternoon, when Lalli had stalked back to the camp ahead of him while Emil struggled with the unwieldy wheelbarrow. 

_I should say something._

"Lalli..." His voice croaked, cracked, failed. Lalli flinched slightly, and Emil wished he could take it back. It was too soon. Too soon. But if he didn't reach out and grab Lalli now, would he also slip away with silent steps that the snow kept from them all? They couldn't survive without Lalli. Emil couldn't survive without him, and he hadn't known that people could simply slip out of your life without warning and without violence and with a suddenness that created a vacuum behind it, threatening to suck all that they'd left behind into the void after them.

 _I would go with you, though._ If Lalli needed to disappear, Emil would follow him. He had meant what he'd told Lalli, even if he had messed it up, just as he messed up everything. They were friends. He didn't know how to be Lalli's friend but that didn't mean that he would stop. But he didn't know what to say.

Lalli's thin back was as small as a child's in the face of the endless sea and the sky that stretched on to eternity. Emil glanced back once in the direction of the camp, where the others had returned. Mikkel and Sigrun had tried to talk to Lalli, before giving up and leaving him in Emil's hands as they always did. Everyone else thought he knew how to handle Lalli. Even Tuuri had left him to deal with Lalli when he was in one of his moods, and she was--had been--would always be the closest family the mage had. They all thought Emil could handle him. If only they were all _right_.

Mikkel would have told Reynir by now. Emil felt a stab of sympathy for the Icelander. That small pang was easier to feel than touching up against the bleak horror that filled him when he imagined the storm that must be raging now in Lalli's mind. Reynir had been inside the tank when they'd gone running pellmell after Lalli. Perhaps he'd stuck his head out after a time, still wearing his mask, wondering where everyone else had gone and wondering if they would ever come back for him.  _Not all of us._

Emil lowered himself to the sand, feeling the gritty grains beneath his palms as Tuuri never would again. Breathing the air that Tuuri never would again. Sitting beside the lonely, scared man that Tuuri would never speak with again. He wanted to reach out and hug Lalli, holding him tight and safe and  _there_. But even if he didn't know what it was he should do, he did know better than to do that. Lalli wouldn't like that. Even if Lalli needed it.

Because maybe Lalli also needed the silence. So that he could strain his ears to pick out one beloved voice among the cries of the many. Or maybe Emil was the one who needed to believe that. Because the silence was all he had to offer.

They sat on the beach, several meters and an ocean of silence between them, as long-dead stars shone down upon them with light that had already been snuffed out. They were just too slow to see that it was so.

The silence enfolded them both in the only embrace that could ever be. And the sea did not bring her back.


End file.
